Incentive-centered design
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Information security User-generated content Reputation systems Social computing Recommender systems Online auction |
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Incentive-centered design (ICD) is the science of designing a system or institution according to the alignment of individual and user incentives with the goals of the system. Using incentive-centered design, system designers can observe systematic and predictable tendencies in users in response to motivators to provide or manage incentives to induce a greater amount and more valuable participation. ICD is often considered when designing a system to induce desirable behaviors from users, such as participation and cooperation. It draws from principles in various areas such as economics, psychology, sociology, design, and engineering. ICD has been gaining attention in research communities due to the role it can play in helping systems benefit their users and ultimately achieve better results.
In 1996, the Nobel Prize in Economics was awarded to William Vickrey and James Mirrlees for their work in "The economic theory of incentives under asymmetric information", which was a core issue addressed by the theory of mechanism design. The theory of mechanism design was an antecedent to incentive-centered design, and in October 15, 2007, Roger Myerson, Leonid Hurwicz and Eric Maskin received the Nobel Prize in Economics from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences for their contributions to that theory. Leonid Hurwicz was the founder of the theory of mechanism design, which is a branch in economics that deals with game theory. In mechanism design, designers try to satisfy design goals in specific sets of games by setting outcome functions and message space of the game. The idea of designing "mechanisms", or sets of institutional participation rules, in order to achieve the designer's goals for a system, is a core concept for ICD.
In 2001, the STIET program (Socio-Technical Infrastructure for Electronic Transactions) received a grant to fund for doctoral fellowships and a multidisciplinary program for the University of Michigan. The program aimed to train, research, and outreach to modern information systems through an incentive-centered design approach. The participants in the program composed of doctoral students and also faculty members of the universities. In 2004, Paul Resnick, one of the four faculty members in the STIET research group of Michigan coined the phrase "Incentive-centered Design" to describe the type of work they did. In 2007, Wayne State University joined the University of Michigan to focus the program on Incentive-centered Design, and the STIET program received a five-year renewal grant that allowed for research in incentive-centered design.
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